The advice is really good for someone who wants to sell stuff. I kind of do comparable things without wanting to sell anything. I just like to hear what people

The advice is really good for someone who wants to sell stuff. I kind of do comparable things without wanting to sell anything. I just like to hear what people are working on and what there plans are so I can stay in the loop of new developments. My goal for a conference is 20 business cards, not 200 to 400. The talking to new people thing is pretty important. I am terrible at this. When I attended my first conference in 2008 a continent away I stood there in a room of 400 people literally not knowing anybody. That moment it dawned me that my boss just paid thousands of dollars to get me here so I better use this opportunity. Three years later, one of the first five people I talked to at that conference got me an H1-B visa and a six figures job. There are related mistakes to make. I've been to so many conferences by now that I know a lot of people I want to hang out with at any given conference. It's easy to just keep talking to these people because that means I do not have to leave my comfort zone again. This is obviously bad because I will not meet new people that way. The same happens when you go to a conference with other people of your company and just stick together the whole time. Do not do this. About this demoing thing. I used to demo our software a lot at conferences. However, our software was so popular in our niche market that people always asked me to see it. I don't think I ever pushed it on anybody. Demoing works perfectly fine if you just leave the main room and sit somewhere around the corner. Most of the conferences I attend are in hotels, so they have plenty of chairs everywhere. What is not mentioned in the article is that you should try to be a speaker at conferences. It is not very hard to become a speaker and it puts you into the spotlight. This makes it much easier to make new contacts. Additionally, many conferences pay travel and hotel costs of their speakers which is awesome.